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Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study

Medical assistants’ (MAs) working conditions have been characterized as precarious, and workplace-related intervention needs have been identified. However, strategies to change the MAs adverse working conditions are mostly seen on an individual level, including leaving the employer or even the profe...

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Autores principales: Scharf, Jessica, Vu-Eickmann, Patricia, Li, Jian, Müller, Andreas, Angerer, Peter, Loerbroks, Adrian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6651363/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31248036
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132260
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author Scharf, Jessica
Vu-Eickmann, Patricia
Li, Jian
Müller, Andreas
Angerer, Peter
Loerbroks, Adrian
author_facet Scharf, Jessica
Vu-Eickmann, Patricia
Li, Jian
Müller, Andreas
Angerer, Peter
Loerbroks, Adrian
author_sort Scharf, Jessica
collection PubMed
description Medical assistants’ (MAs) working conditions have been characterized as precarious, and workplace-related intervention needs have been identified. However, strategies to change the MAs adverse working conditions are mostly seen on an individual level, including leaving the employer or even the profession. Since such intentions are antecedents of actual turnover, we aimed to quantify the potential link of reported unmet intervention needs with unfavorable occupational outcomes. Data were collected by means of a nationwide survey among medical assistants (n = 994) in Germany (September 2016–April 2017). The three subscales working conditions, reward from the supervisor, and task-related independence were derived from a 12-item instrument regarding work-related interventions needs (the independent variables). We used subscale-specific z-scores and a total needs z-score. The four outcome variables (i.e., intention to leave the employer, intention to leave the MA profession, choosing MA profession again, and recommending MA profession to young people) were dichotomized, and logistic regression analyses were performed and limited to MAs in employment (n = 887). We found that increasing needs according to the categorized total needs score were associated with increasing odds of all occupational outcomes. Needs pertaining to working conditions and reward from the supervisor were the strongest determinants of MAs’ consideration of leaving their employer or profession (Odds ratios: 1.55–2.61). In summary, our study identified unmet work-related intervention needs that are associated with unfavorable occupational outcomes. In light of staffing shortage in health care, the identified needs should be addressed to ensure that sufficient recruitment of junior staff in the profession of medical assistants remains feasible and that experienced staff is retained.
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spelling pubmed-66513632019-08-08 Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study Scharf, Jessica Vu-Eickmann, Patricia Li, Jian Müller, Andreas Angerer, Peter Loerbroks, Adrian Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Medical assistants’ (MAs) working conditions have been characterized as precarious, and workplace-related intervention needs have been identified. However, strategies to change the MAs adverse working conditions are mostly seen on an individual level, including leaving the employer or even the profession. Since such intentions are antecedents of actual turnover, we aimed to quantify the potential link of reported unmet intervention needs with unfavorable occupational outcomes. Data were collected by means of a nationwide survey among medical assistants (n = 994) in Germany (September 2016–April 2017). The three subscales working conditions, reward from the supervisor, and task-related independence were derived from a 12-item instrument regarding work-related interventions needs (the independent variables). We used subscale-specific z-scores and a total needs z-score. The four outcome variables (i.e., intention to leave the employer, intention to leave the MA profession, choosing MA profession again, and recommending MA profession to young people) were dichotomized, and logistic regression analyses were performed and limited to MAs in employment (n = 887). We found that increasing needs according to the categorized total needs score were associated with increasing odds of all occupational outcomes. Needs pertaining to working conditions and reward from the supervisor were the strongest determinants of MAs’ consideration of leaving their employer or profession (Odds ratios: 1.55–2.61). In summary, our study identified unmet work-related intervention needs that are associated with unfavorable occupational outcomes. In light of staffing shortage in health care, the identified needs should be addressed to ensure that sufficient recruitment of junior staff in the profession of medical assistants remains feasible and that experienced staff is retained. MDPI 2019-06-26 2019-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6651363/ /pubmed/31248036 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132260 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Scharf, Jessica
Vu-Eickmann, Patricia
Li, Jian
Müller, Andreas
Angerer, Peter
Loerbroks, Adrian
Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study
title Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_full Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_fullStr Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_full_unstemmed Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_short Work-Related Intervention Needs and Potential Occupational Outcomes among Medical Assistants: A Cross-Sectional Study
title_sort work-related intervention needs and potential occupational outcomes among medical assistants: a cross-sectional study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6651363/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31248036
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132260
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